Elec­tro­gas made it a point yes­ter­day to is­sue a state­ment say­ing that dur­ing the storm that hit the Mal­tese is­lands over the week­end – strong winds and rough seas – the LNG tanker “re­mained at all times moored safely with no in­ci­dent or risk ex­po­sure what­so­ever.”

The worst weather recorded in the ships logs over the week­end was an ENE wind of Force 7 (25 ~ 30 knots wind) with wind gusts touch­ing 40 Knots fre­quently. The sea con­di­tion was choppy due to wind with a swell of Hs 0.5 me­tres, Elec­tro­gas said.

The FSU was in the process of fine tun­ing the spread moor­ing chains as­sisted by four tugs from time to time, and did not have to cease this work. Dur­ing the full pe­riod of the storm, the FSU rolled by a cou­ple of de­grees due to swell and held its po­si­tion com­fort­ably, it added.

The storm that hit the Mal­tese Is­lands was one known as a “gri­galata”, with winds blow­ing from the north­east. Marsaxlokk Bay, where the tanker is si­t­u­ated, is fac­ing the south­east so it was more shel­tered than ar­eas such as Val­letta, Sliema and St Ju­lian’s, which faced the storm head on.